Posts Tagged ‘bench’

Just because something should be used in one way, does not mean that it is the most interesting way to take a picture of it.

Here are two pictures of the same bench. The first, as I found it, lying down, almost in the water of the lake it is oft used to fish at, and a gain, after it is set up as if it were to be used.

I’ve made a couple of changes in the process, besides setting it up. Obviously I’m not taking the picture from the same location, and I’ve framed it differently. In the fallen down image, the bench is central to the image, and is actually put in the center of the image. As a side effect, the clouds reflecting off the water do draw the eye away from the image. Also the shadow of the bench is almost non-existing. Or more accurately almost everything you can see of the bench is in shadow. You can see some highlighting on the top surface of the legs, and the bench, but that’s about all. Because so much of the bench is in shadow, it’s difficult to tell if it is actually even in focus. Did the auto-focus of the camera actually try to focus on the clouds? It’s tough to tell.

The framing of the bench in the second image is far better. It’s a little off to the side, and at the same time is obviously the object of interest. It’s clearly in focus, shows better highlighting of areas that are of interest, and the highlighting is not so high of contrast as to make it difficult to see detail in the shadows.

Ok, technically the second image is perhaps a bit better. That said, what’s the possible story. It’s a bench that someone probably was fishing from, but is currently not being used. Which image tells that as a story better? I’m going to argue for the first image. The bench was abandoned in such a way that it’s fallen over. Was that someone not caring about the bench when they left? Did the bench fall due to it being on an uneven surface and a duck tried to sit on it and put weight on it in such a way as to cause it to topple? Or the fox in the area? Did we just have a strong wind, or perhaps some child playing at the lake bumped into it but was already off to doing something else before it fully toppled? We don’t know, but we can consider these as parts of the tale of the image.

When looking at the second image, all we can say is that I’ve found an old bench by the lake that probably could be used by someone contemplating the lake, or perhaps doing some fishing at the lake may have used it. It’s enjoyed some weathering. But how interesting are those stories?

I should have left the bench where it was, and done a better job of framing the image of the bench as it was when I found it. Having thought about it, I’ll have to consider that when taking pictures in the future. Not everything is ‘improved’ by me ‘fixing’ the situation.